504. Get out of your own way - with Dave Hollis

So one quick thing before we get started. For 2020, I have decided to partner with different brands that I am obsessed with. And this couldn't be more exciting because not only does it mean that I get to partner with people who I'm already loving and using and using for different gifts and in my life, but this means that I finally get to offer you guys discounts, amazing freaking discounts on some of my favorite things because I decided to partner with them as sponsors for this podcast. So I hope you guys are really excited because I am planning to bring you some of the coolest brands that I'm obsessed with, and that is starting today. So I've decided to partner with a company called Vincero Watches. And I'm thrilled because I'm obsessed with this watch. You guys have probably seen me wearing it. I am constantly looking for amazing, amazing gifts for my podcast guests. I'm looking for amazing gifts for my Bliss Project, speakers for our Mastermind, speakers for my friends for birthdays. And this is something that I have been getting people in my life that I love, not only because they are super quality, but they are so incredibly beautiful. You guys, if you're wondering what all of these amazing accessories are that you're seeing on Instagram all the time that these bloggers are wearing, this watch is one of those that just looks like it's super expensive. It's still stunning. It goes with everything. The watch that I have has a beautiful white face and it is rose gold and it's just super sexy. It literally goes with everything that I wear and I've been getting tons of compliments on it. So they are exceptionally crafted watches. And you guys, as listeners, I get to offer you 15 off of your entire order. And they're going to cover all shipping costs for you if you use the code happy. And that's all caps H A P P Y at checkout. And they're honest, obviously, super unique. You have to go and check them out yourself at Vincero Watches. I'm going to spell it out for you. V I N C E R O W A T c h e s.com so honestly, any occasion you could wear this with a dress, you can wear this to the office, you can just wear this at home because it looks so damn good in all of your Instagram stories. So, you guys, Vincero offers free shipping, 30 day returns, and guarantees your watch for two. And they also have over 20,000 five star reviews of verified customers. And like I said, I love this because it's that perfect price point for A beautiful gift without overpaying. People will literally love this gift and remember you for it. So go grab your watch.

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And if you aren't in a place where you are being pushed out of your comfort zone into a place where growth is possible, you'll never truly be.

Welcome to the earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves. Get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for tuning in, you guys. There is a multitude of podcasts you could be listening to and the fact that you keep tuning in to earn your happy makes me super happy. So we have got an awesome guest on the show for you today and I had the honor of going to dinner with this couple, which today I'm only interviewing one of them. I already had Rachel Hollis on and now I get to have Dave Hollis on the show. And you're gonna love this conversation. I am telling you, it is so much fun to get the other perspective of the other person and really learn about the inner workings of different people's businesses in life. And when we went to dinner together, which we'll share a little bit on here, I can tell you that, number one, this is what I look for in a couple. A couple who can throw down sushi with you. That's very important on my list. And we checked the box on that one, so I think they love it as much as we do. And also just people who really love to support each other, are laid back and also who truly are just committed to their vision and the people that they get to serve. And that is who Dave Hollis is. He serves as the CEO of the Hollis Company where he chases audacious dreams with his partner and cco. The extraordinary New York Times bestselling author, motivational speaker and world changer, Rachel Hollis. If you haven't heard of them, I'm not sure. The rock you live under must be large. I don't know. The Hollis Company is built around the belief that everybody is made for more. It exists to arm people from every background with the tools to change their life for the better. Their content is a mix of encouragement, authentic truth telling, intangible direction to make lasting change. They create tools and foster community to help people grow in their relationships, relationships, business, sense of self and opportunities to impact others. You guys, I just scrolled through some of their pictures on Instagram and seeing their Rise conference was. It gave me chills. It was completely overwhelming and beautiful and I get to hear about all of the things that go on at the conferences which I will make my way to very soon. And if you are feeling like you need to go to the next level, absolutely. If it's coming to your area or fly there, you guys, you need to get there. Dave has an incredible book coming out that we are going to talk about and the Hollis Company measures success and impact. How can the media, live events and merchandise they produce create real and lasting change Outside of the Hollis Company, Dave is a member of the Motion Picture Academy and he sits on the membership committee. He serves on an innovation board called Fandango Labs as well as the board of Will Rogers Motion Pictures Pioneers, the board of foster care charity Austin Angels and the board of Pepperdine's Institute for Entertainment, Media and Culture. He believes in the importance of variety in a career for considering any candidate. His myriad of jobs and research, publicity, talent management have truly rounded his expertise and affords an informed, solution oriented, macro view of any business. You guys, he has four children. He's an adopted father and a four time foster dad. He's truly an incredible human. And before we jump into the podcast, I want to remind you that the Bliss Project is coming up. It is the last weekend of March and I say this all the time but I cannot stress the importance, especially after just getting done with event love. All of the women said they didn't know if they were ready, they didn't feel ready or they didn't have the money and they just got themselves in the room and their life changed. You have to just get yourself in the rooms. And I will tell you, the epic human beings of every level that come in this room to find their tribe, to find their answers, and to connect. You will not leave without an answer because we make sure you step up into your fear and get out of your own way. And truly, we support you in every way around that. Even if you're nervous, even if you're scared, even if you're just freaking excited. We want to arm you with the tools going into this 2020 year to make a total difference and have the connection and tribe that you want. So you guys go to the Bliss Project.info right now to reserve your ticket. We don't have that many left. We tend to sell half of the event out at the event, which is quite crazy, you guys. That says a lot about the event when over 50% of your particip participants buy for the next year at that event. So that is just a huge testimonial. This will be our, I think, our eighth or ninth Bliss Project, and there's some big things going down here. I'm just going to say this one is monumental. You need to get here. It's going to be different than all of them for a couple different reasons. And I'm offering an opportunity to everybody there as well. So get your butt in the seat and let's get started on this podcast. Dave, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on, Laurie.

Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

So last time I got to see you was actually over sushi, which that's just. We're lacking that right now. It's fine.

We need that. Actually, this conversation would be better if there were Wasabi.

Well, maybe light wasabi, because I think I wouldn't be able to handle too much talking with wasabi. So I am like, I love following you guys. I love seeing how much expansion is possible in such a short amount of time. And for us, you and Rachel are our permission couple. Like, I just think that when people are out in the world and creating things, it's like, oh, my God, that is so inspiring. Like, that's just permission to grow, expand, and. And if we can even just say a little bit of what you were just chatting about. I love hearing that you still get uncomfortable. You still get so verklempt before certain things.

Can you share a little of that every day? The crazy thing is, I Left what I thought was the identity I might have for the rest of my entire life, for the life I ultimately needed. And that pursuit fired, leaving certainty for uncertainty. So I chose this. I have to remind myself on an almost every single day basis that I chose fulfillment at the expense of being comfortable. And so my discomfort is every single day a reflection of my interest in growing. And good news, man, I'm growing on an everyday basis. But I am also, because of that pursuit, uncomfortable every single day. Before we started recording, Laura and I were talking about our upcoming business conference. I'm super, super excited about it. It will be, bar none, the biggest thing that we've ever thrown the most number of speakers. And pursuing something that's new like that is so exciting. And the and for me is I came out of a space where everything just kind of worked right. I worked at the Walt Disney Company for 17 years. I worked at Fox before that. I worked at these big businesses where I had big teams. There was a lot of infrastructure. Things just generally work. And when something stopped working, it got fixed pretty quickly. And I'm now working in a space where we are less about trail maintenance and more about trailblazing. And the blazing comes with the guarantee of things not working as well as you would hope. And so in like our every single day and in the 10 day lead up to what will be for us, an amazing conference, more than 6,500 people together really truly pouring into how they can grow their business or career. The excitement is balanced against the unpredictability of what it will be for us to throw an event that we've never thrown before and that is uncomfortable. It's disorienting. It gives me, if I'm super, super honest, a tiny bit of vertigo when I start to let the anxiety metastasize inside of my brain in a way that is unhealthy. And so I have to remind myself, hey, you chose this. You said you wanted to grow. You said you wanted to, at the expense of comfort and certainty, be someone who could continue to become. And that becoming is man produced the very, very best in me and in growing. But also discomfort with the holidays and.

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So how do you, you know, do you acknowledge that? Do you say it out loud to a lot of people? Do you bring it to the surface? Because I think so many people, whether it's a conference, 7500, or whether it's a workshop of 20 people or something that's new and expansive for them, how do you deal with it? Because sometimes just looking at it like, I know it's going to be fine, but I can't control these things right now. Do you do a practice, do you bring it up to your team a lot? Do you acknowledge it? Do you feel it? What are the things that you do to actually work through it without letting it consume you?

I used to drink a lot when I was overwhelmed by it, right? Because I would start to feel anxious, I'd start to feel fear, have insecurity, the pangs of imposter syndrome, whatever it is that was coming up that was triggering me in some negative way. And rather than deal with it, I would just try and squish it down and mute it and have the rough edges of how it may be uncomfortable, become more comfortable by just pretending like they weren't there. That was a recipe for disaster. And so in a season where I've had to acknowledge, yep, you are only going to grow if you can fully experience the discomfort that you have opted in for. I am like 7 months now not having a drink, which, by the way, leading into an event like this normally would have been the remedy for some of anxiety. And I've had to find positive coping mechanisms instead of negative ones to help me process the emotion of preparing for an event like this. And I've had to become really comfortable declaring my discomfort to either people who can help, Hey, I need some help here. Could you please pour some truth or some light into this dark thing that exists in my brain to show me the untruths that I'm clinging to that in maybe making them now reveal themselves as being untruth so I can stop believing them. Or just this morning, we have an every single Tuesday morning practice here at the Hollis Company called Hoco Convo. And I had my team together and in the midst of this last 90 days of the year, we're doing a challenge in our community called last 90 days. And the theme this week is fear. And so I, in addressing our team of, I don't know, 55 humans or so, had everyone in the room and I expressed the reality of Processing fear in this workplace as a prerequisite to becoming the leader that we'll need two years from now and five years from now, that just because I can stand in front of you and lead this conversation doesn't mean that I'm even immune from feeling overwhelmed or feeling scared or not thinking that I'm necessarily equipped for the things that we're pursuing. And then I gave some examples because it's important, important for me as a leader who's interested in credibility and connection with my team, for them to appreciate that I like them, am human, and that I like them. And frankly, every single person listening to the podcast. Struggle. Struggle is universal. Fear is universal. Like dealing with the overwhelmingness of pursuing an exceptional life, it's universal. And the more that I can normalize that processing in my head by sharing my experience with other people, it takes a thing that would otherwise have stigma or taboo around it and makes it something that when it's not something that I'm carrying by myself, it feels like I can then pass the load of that weight around the community of people that I've brought into my experience and my struggle. And that, by the way, is a complete departure from who I was previous to us jumping into this work together, because I came out of a role where managing optics to the press was a part of what I did. So I was very much a storyteller and a narrative spinner that in this social media environment that we lived in, that curates the highlight reel version of everyone's best version of self. I only told people the good stuff, only curated the best stories, and that doesn't allow you to connect with people who might also appreciate in your telling a story about struggle, give them permission to have those feelings and process the things that are going on in their head.

So I think along with the theme of fear, which I know you guys see all of the time in your community, I'm just hearing so much the word overwhelm and anxiety. And I know that it's something that I've dealt with my whole life, too, experienced my whole life, But I found that through just either different methods of coping with it or different things that I'm really focusing on or really working into my daily routine, that I'm much more able to work with it. Like, it doesn't feel like anything that will stop me anymore. So for a lot of people who have a lot of overwhelm or anxiety, like, do you experience with everything that you have on your plate, any moments where you're just like, oh, my God, when do I get breathing room or where is that coming from? Is it thinking about the future? Is it like really not being present? How do you manage, do you have anxiety? How do you manage it?

Well, most of the time, the things that are being provoked in an anxious state, in a fearful state, are the worry of the optics of what others will think if the thing I'm pursuing doesn't work well. So the first place I would start is, who are you worried about not impressing? Who are you worried about being seen as not impressive? Perfect. Who are you like? Who are the other people who you are giving the weight of this experience away to, that if you were to just make it about the pursuit of you being a bit better than yesterday as opposed to keeping up with her or living into the expectations of him, or conforming to what society suggests you should or shouldn't do. If you were just to pursue growing into a better version of yourself every single day, how might that measure be different than the standard that someone else has set that you're now trying to live into? That's the first thing. And even in that, before I even move off of that, the thing that I have to always remind myself I had anxiety about things that were related to what other people were thinking about me. My decisions, my actions, the identity I was living into. And the reality is that nobody is thinking about you. And it's tough because, man, we're all people built on ego and our self image is reliant on them, affirming us in some way. And the reality is, God bless them and you, they're not thinking about you in the same way you're not thinking about them. Because inherently, humanity, all of us, we're worried first and foremost about ourselves. And so if there's any like, pressure that is relieved by recognizing that, that nobody's thinking about the thing that you're doing, at least they're not thinking about it in a way that has as much or carries as much importance or weight. You put on the thing that you're pursuing yourself. Be free. Let yourself go from worrying about how what you're doing measures up to what they're thinking. Then the other piece is like this big thing that we have to rewire our brain for as it relates to failure. There's a lot of times fear and anxiety for me, and I think for a lot of people is a reflection of the way that we think about what it might mean to fail publicly or to try something that we're not good at and not be great at. It immediately, you're not going to be great immediately. And the connection that exists between growth and failure is so tight. So if you are interested in any way in pursuing a life that has, has growth as a part of it, then you have to change the way that you associate negative things to failure and instead associate positive things to it. When I started a journey in the midst of being stuck, I was so stuck and unfulfilled because of an absence of growth. But I also had a real aversion to failure. And so I had to choose was I going to change the relationship that I had with failure so that in pursuing things that I was not yet perfect at, I might make mistakes and in those mistakes learn from them in a way that afforded me growth, or was I going to stay stuck but not have to deal with failure? Well, when that's the, when those are the choices, man, it's just so clear cut. You better change the way that you think about failure because the only way, the only way that you can be fulfilled is if you're growing. But the only way that you can grow is if you walk toward failure and see it as happening for you so that you can learn from the mistakes that you make to grow into this better, more evolved, more complete, more equipped version of yourself. Once I got that through my head, and by the way, like, intellectually I get that, man, I get that emotionally I still struggle, like I think a lot of people struggle with the idea of what are they going to say if I make a mistake publicly? What will it say about me as a man, as a husband, as a father? What will it say about me as a boss of people? What will it say about me as a son, as a, you know, whatever the kind of moniker, the identity that you wear, there's always going to be that thing. But when you can't intellectually appreciate, if you're not growing, you won't be fulfilled. And if you don't walk toward and experience failure, put yourself in positions where failure is not just possible, but you will fail and in the failure you'll grow, you can't be fulfilled. Well, now failure is your only option because fulfillment is the end and growth.

Is the oh so good. What do you say to the people who, like, they understand that, but they come back with a lot of fear around? Yes, but this thing that I want to do, this is the difference between if I fail, maybe I won't be able to feed my kids, or maybe I'm going to lose X, Y and Z. Because I do think that There are those things that we do in life. I think anything that I've ever done has been risky. I've definitely been to places where I have, you know, lost everything. But I also know that that was such a massive part of my journey and my growth. But I understand when people have kids or they feel it's very dependent on that. Have you ever gotten a lot of pushback about that?

Yeah. Here's the thing. You can't put your family at risk. You can't put your livelihood. You have a set of basic needs at the base of Maslow's hierarchy. You've got to take care of those basic things first. And being in a position to not put at risk something that would take care of your livelihood for sure, that's where you got to start. But acknowledging that that's the case, there are ways for you to take on a side hustle, but get up earlier to stay up a little bit later. Like when people usually use this as their reason why they can't. They also can still tell me about the most recent episode of this Is Us. And here's the thing, man, I want to cry, you know, I want to while I'm watching NBC like the rest of humanity. But if you, you know, if you are still working your 9 to 5 and are convinced that quitting your 9 to 5 is a thing you can't do because it put your family at risk. But you still can invest time in scrolling on Instagram, still can invest time in binge watching something on Netflix, still can invest time on anything other than a side hustle that might make the opportunity for you to leave that nine to five a thing that you can do, then you have chosen. And by the way, I'm not even going to judge that person, but just acknowledge if you are that person, that you made a prioritization choice that values entertainment, that values social media, that values something else other than pursuing a way out of your current 9 to 5 over a way out. And so you just have to choose. Like, how are you utilizing time? We all have the same amount of time in a day, so you have to make hard choices. You know, there are times when people say, I don't have time. And I would argue that the calendar that they have is a reflection at times of things that they have said yes to that were other people's values, not their own personal values. Sometimes when someone has asked you to do something and you said yes to them, you do it out of the goodness of your heart, but also at the expense of your personal value set or at the expense of your priority set. And so if you want to go pursue your thing, inevitably it's going to come at the expense of the comfort of some of the people who have become accustomed to you showing up in their life in a way that serves them more than it may serve your dream, more than it may serve your vision of who you hope to become. At the beginning of Rachel's personal growth growth journey, I was not yet on board the personal growth train, and she didn't care. I mean, I think she cared. She was hoping I'd just wake up and, like, feel like becoming a better version of myself. Like she felt like becoming a better version of herself. She's wired differently than I am. She's motivated differently than I am. I did not feel this thing that she felt. And so in that instance, she had to make a choice. Am I going to sacrifice what my development might mean for me to keep him happy, or am I going to make him uncomfortable by getting up at 5am to pursue my side hustle and in that discomfort for him, make myself more whole? Well, she chose the latter. She decided to make herself this whole bigger, better version of her. And it came at my comfort at the expense of my comfort.

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If you're not currently pursuing the passion of your heart, the fully unlocking of the potential you've been gifted, and you're still working against the calendar needs of people whose agenda is taking priority over your dream, you're going to have to make some people uncomfortable. And that's okay, right? Like they may not like it, but you're the one that has to live with whether or not at the end of your life you can look back and say, man, it was worth having made a few people uncomfortable to fully live into this gift that I was given and my talents and my time was best utilized. Or man, I have some regret. But you know, I did keep a lot of other people super happy over the course of my lifetime. It's kind of a one or the other thing.

Oh man, I could I have five questions in my head and I'm going to let this one win. Okay?

Okay.

So this is probably one of the most frequently asked questions to Chris and I and probably you as well, but our journey was so similar to that same exact thing. I kind of went on the path, really had hoped Chris would kind of, you know, wake up and just want to be a better version of himself. But that took a while. And there was a lot. There were a lot of times where I was like, oh, man, like, do I have the right partner for me? But I just kept going because I really felt that I did. But the. The biggest question that I get from women is, you know, I'm on this personal development journey. I don't know if I have the right person for me. I'm not sure that he's gonna. He doesn't want to do all this stuff with me. He doesn't want to go to these events. And we, you know, I explain to just keep being that light, but I think a lot of people, they want to know right now, like, they want that answer. And I'm like, it's just not necessarily how it works. So how would you, you know, what would you say just for people to better understand would be some good advice around just continuing on that journey and what that. What that kind of looked like for you guys?

Yeah, you know, I was in this very strange come together of events at a time that I. Now, of course, I can see it as, like, providence. I can see it as serendipity. At the time, it felt like a midlife crisis, but I was going on this trend. I was in this, like, weird bridge between 30 and 40. I had a lot of success at work and didn't have to work very hard to get straight A grade. So I was just not really being put in a place where I was either growing or fully using my potential. And my wife was experiencing this just growth in company, growth in person, growth in, like, who she was generally in a way that contrasted against how I felt, made it feel even worse. And in the midst of her really diving into personal development, I became resentful of the fact that she was becoming so full against the backdrop of me feeling so empty. And when she first, like, really went after it, I can remember, like, she'd get up at 5 in the morning that, like, head the plug from the phone hitting the floor very, very gently was a thing that I very aggressively roll over and runt over. Right. But it took for us, unfortunately. Unfortunately, you know, like, truly, it was a unfortunate time. And, man, it's like, I'm so grateful for it now. I had to hit a bit of a bottom for us to end up having the hardest conversation and most important conversation of our marriage, where my withdrawal, my resistance, my frustration hit ahead. At the end of a vacation where we went to be together with our family and I went on a separate vacation full of alcohol and withdrawal and playing Video games instead of enjoying Hawaii, which is sad and ridiculous. We came back from that trip and we sat on a bed in our home and she had the conversation that that more or less was me being called on the carpet. Hey, Dave, I love you. I am going to grow every single day. If you choose to continue to not grow, we are going to grow apart because I, every day I am going to become a little bit better version of myself, a little bit different than I am today. And if you are stuck, then in a, you know, in a year, are we still going to go on a date? In two years, are we still going to make out? In three years, are we going to still be married? Spoiler alert. I knew the answer, right? But it took for me having one. The first piece for me really was she was modeling every day for six months leading into this conversation. The fruit that came in her investing in herself, right? So she was leaving the breadcrumbs, she was doing the work. I was seeing the effect of her investing in the books, in the podcasts, in the conferences, in the way she was getting out, moving her body, everything. And then when we had this hard conversation, I was given the gift of leverage. Now, leverage sometimes is paint a picture of how great your future can be. Man, that sounds so great. I'm going to go chase after it. That was not the leverage that I was interested in, or I guess I should say I wasn't motivated by. The leverage that I was motivated by was the picture of us not being married, of us exchanging our kids on alternating weekends, of me becoming an out of shape, overweight, barely sober version of myself that my 60th birthday came and we were around a table and my kids were raising a glass to toast what they were proud of in my having shown up. Well, for them, they were left speechless because they couldn't really think of something great to say. That was sad. Like, seriously, it provoked, like, super cares. But it also provoked action, right? So for me, that hard conversation, her role as an accountability partner, for me creating an image of the worst possible thing that would happen if my inaction continued, that was the catalyst for action. And so I began a journey that for me started with really working on understanding why. Why did I find myself in a place that I did? What was it about my limiting beliefs? What was it about my fixed mindset? What was about my motivation challenges? You know, like, Rachel and I are almost completely different. And I've always been skeptical of these tools. She was always, like completely into them from the word go. She's Intrinsically internally motivated. Like, she has like, warmth coming from her body with her motivation in the morning before the sun is up. And I have to generate it externally every single day. I'm trying to find a way to be motivated, and it's hard. And she's always been growth mindset oriented. And I was just a person who was fixed mindset. And so I had to go on this journey of like, what book can I read to help me understand mindset? I picked up Carol Dweck's book called Mindset. Fantastic. Let me talk about habits. Okay, so I got Charles Duhigg's book Power of Habit. Try to understand how instituting some every single day practice and routine and habits, understanding cues and how to change out the response in a way that doesn't get in my way. Doing the work of sitting on the couch of a therapist and really understanding my wiring from childhood and why it helped lead me to the bottom of a ditch so that I'd actually have a vehicle to try and climb out. And so that began the journey. Now the great news is because of Rachel having stayed consistent with if her pursuit of excellence on this growth journey that she was on, she was the person who was able to, on the edge of this gully that I was trying to get out of, throw a rope in so that I could actually start to get out. She had a sense of which tools would help. She had a history in having first sat in therapy. She knew this book, then this book. And as I reached for things, she was the one that was able to help me reach for more and more. And so if you're the person listening and you're like, man, my partner, just not on this train, the first piece of advice is stay on your plan. Do not meet that person in the ditch. I wanted nothing more than for Rachel to come and sit with me in the mediocrity, in the sadness, in the feeling stuck. But if we'd both been stuck, there would not have been someone to throw a rope. And certainly there wouldn't have been someone modeling what it looks like to reach for and. And enjoy the fruit of investing in yourself. And then two, as they get to a place where you can talk to them about what it might mean for your relationship in a way they can hear it. Right? I needed to be in a place where it had gotten bad enough, where she knew that I needed to hear it. I was ready to hear it, and she represented it in a very, very thoughtful way. That conversation we had on the bed, she been thinking about and Praying about for months. She, she brought it to me in the most delicate, considerate of my ego, considerate of my masculinity, considerate of how I could receive it and, and in a way that I wouldn't. You know, like, I tend to be a defensive person and a litigator by wiring. It was like, listen, I don't want to, I don't want to debate this. I just want to tell you how I'm feeling. And she brought it up in a way that I could hear. So, you know, it's. I think it's a combination of a whole host of things. The biggest thing. Sorry, this is the longest answer in the history of time. Stick, like, just stick with your belief in you becoming better, you becoming bigger, you becoming a stronger light source for the person who maybe is struggling in the dark. Because when I finally was able to clear the fogginess out of, of this two years, I mean, we've been married for 15, right, for 12 years. We were both crushing. And I just, I hit something in the midlife ness in the job, dissatisfaction in feeling stuck in my, like, struggling with certainty in a world where I needed uncertainty, that I fell into this funk. And the funk was about a two year kind of thing. But it's. At the time it felt like this is just as good as it's going to get for the rest of time. And it wasn't until I was able to finally lift my head up and see, oh, no, no, no, wait, she's found ways to grow and become better every single day. I bet if these things work for her, they could.

So good. I mean, whether that's your partner or a friend or people in your family, I think a lot of what you said can be completely applied to that because we all, if we are on a personal growth journey, I think we all have those people who are like, I'm not going with you right now.

Yeah.

And it's just kind of the waiting period. Or like you said, the conversations.

I will say this though, and this is going to be hard for somebody to hear. In the midst of me deciding to take action, I had to do an audit of the most important influences in my life that weren't my why. And it turned out that most of them were reiterating a narrative of this being as good as it got, that this is just what it is to be this age with this many kids that you know and, and that narrative, that narrative that was being spoken into me by these influences on all sides that weren't. Rachel had me Believing that lie.

Oh my God.

And so, right, like, so you know, you made as a person who's reaching for growth, if the rest of the circle of your partner isn't something that necessarily leaves them believing that they can reach for and become a bigger, better version of themselves, there may be some auditing that has to take place. And that's a hard thing. Doesn't mean shut people out of your life. Doesn't mean goodbye, it's over and done. But it may require that you change the way that you give way to the influence and the importance of the voice of people who have misaligned vision for their future. If there's hopelessness in the circle and you're hoping to have a better future, you need to change the circle.

Oh, I have that conversation all the time because I actually went through a phase of my life where I had to step away from my family for about three years due to different religious ties and things like that. Just where I had to go discover who I was and be strong enough to not keep falling back into habit that, you know, and beliefs and fear around just everything in life. And that was. That's probably still the toughest thing to tell people is like, yeah, there was a three year period where I was not talking to my family because I just wasn't strong enough to not fall back into those habits or fear beliefs or, you know, keep questioning myself and my faith. So that's, it's so tough. But it's my truth. I don't know how to not, you know, I don't know how to get around that when people come from a similar background. So what is something for you two that when you have conversations with each other about what it's taken to get to where you're at, do you ever have those moments where you're like, if people really knew what it took or if people really knew how to do it, it would look like this. Like, what are those things that you want to say to people of what it actually really takes that are tough truth to tell people?

Well, we had to commit, especially in working together. So we've been working together since June of last year. So a little more than like about a year and a half. And when we started working together, we had to commit to this idea of radical candor in our professional life, but also our personal life. If you have not. If you type into Google radical candor, there's a 22 or so minute YouTube video that Kim Scott, I want to say her name is Kim Scott, has done it's a great watch. When I previously led big teams, I had every single person on the team watch this video. And then we tried to just culturally embrace the idea of radical candor. And the idea very simply is in real time, if there's something that has come up in either you feeling a certain way or you, you observing something that is disconnected from the values you've suggested you are hoping to or that they, as a person inside of your orbit, are hoping to exhibit that you will privately pull them aside and have a real time conversation to give them some feedback so that small things don't fester and become big. And so when we're together so much, and I love this woman more than anybody, everybody, I mean, we're back best friends. We have been best friends first, but now that we spend as much time as we do and we have the classic clashes that a creative that's her. And a pragmatist operator that's me, would have in trying to chase all of the opportunity for impact that exists here, we have to push away from the emotion that might normally be a roadblock in pulling us off track and instead just say, well, look, let's in real time address this thing. My intention was this. It is not what you believe it to be. My intention was this. Or I appreciate that this may be received this way. That is not what I am trying to get across. Or in real time. Interestingly, when we can identify why the person is having the emotional reaction that they are, we'll actually call it out. Respectfully, I, I think ego is playing a role in your reaction here. And this is not, I'm not attempting to undermine you from an ego perspective or I think pride or I think, you know, this, that like we talk about it so often now that wading into hard conversations is as normal as us giving each other a smooch in the beginning and end of day. Like, it's just, it's just normal. So we've normalized conflict in a way that's super constructive and allows us to in real time push through things. So that's one we also, I mean, this is going to sound strange, but in the rare times when it does bubble into something that approaches a fight, we're just not fighting people. So we don't fight that often. But when we get to the place where, man, this is serious, we send emails to each other articulating in a way that's more thoughtful than sometimes the emotion that it can be wrapped up in trying to defend. Like they're saying something you're not really listening to what they're saying. You're thinking of how you're going to respond before they say the thing. No, no, no. I'm going to take a second and try to help you understand the importance of this thing. So I have been the recipient of the hardest thing to read and the most important thing to read in this role that I have as CEO here or frankly as the husband to my wife. In that when I have veered into, oh, that's a bad coping mechanism, oh, that's not serving the team, she's there to hit me with a dose of truth because I need it, even if it doesn't taste good necessarily. But that medicine is important to making sure that I can stay connected to our mission here or the value that we have in having an exceptional relationship. It's taken to like, Sorry, I know you asked this question a long time ago, but, but it's like the thing that it's really taken is for us to be very deliberate with our morning routines, our daily habits. So we are creatures of habit. We get up every single day at the exact same time, 5am we go through the same routine every day. Mine a little bit different than hers, but we spend time in prayer and meditation. We do a gratitude practice and an intentional goal setting practice. We work out every single morning. We drink our body weight and water every single day. We're consistently meal planning and know before we get to the day what we're going to actually eat. We are religious about Thursday night date night every single week. Doesn't matter what is happening in our week. Doesn't matter if we like each other or not. We are going on a date every single week. Intimacy. Yep. We still make out on the regular. And we frankly do it even when we're not that excited about the hard nature of the day or the fact that maybe we were arguing about something earlier in the day. We're just committed to it. And so anything that feels like it's big gets smaller. When you have the routine that one engineers your start of day to give you the energy to actually pursue everything you want to try and chase in the day. But then also when we run into things, we run into things on an almost everyday basis. We still can come back to home base with us having a makeout sesh with us eating a good dinner with us going on a date night, you know, doing the things that help remind us why we're in this thing together.

Oh, I love that. Just remind and diffuse. Chris and I have a nightly walk that we also, it's a space to connect, but it's also the space where whatever is festering is gonna come up. So I think, you know, by you guys practicing radical candor in the moment. I know you have team around a lot, so sometimes maybe things aren't appropriate to say with team. So maybe you do that through email. But do you have, you know, I'm talking a lot about making sure that people have spaces created to either connect or for those conversations to come up. Because sometimes you are around people all day. So is there something that you do to like work in the space or is it literally just like, hold on, we're gonna step away and do this?

Well, we carpool most days, which is such a weird thing. But like the amount of things that we process in a 26 minute drive from where we live to where we work, there's a lot. But also we have an open office plan here and three buildings that are in close proximity to each other. And then our offices are just down the hall and separate from the kind of general public population so we can have a conversation pretty easily without having to have the team worry that mommy and daddy are fighting. But also, you know, like, this isn't, we're so passionate about the work that this isn't a thing that you get home and we turn off. Like, it would be disingenuous to like not be excited or geeked out about the work that we're doing at the end. 8:30pm if something awesome comes up in your head or you want to talk through it, the converse flip side of that is we haven't, like, I want to put a chart up. Like no accidents in how many days, like no problems in how many days. It would just be stuck at zero because, like, we haven't had a day yet where we didn't make one mistake where there wasn't something that didn't work perfectly. As much as I came out of environments where things generally work, things generally don't work as well in an entrepreneurial startup kind of environment. We got here in June last year with four people and we now have 55. There's a lot of people to onboard and to define who does what and to figure out the ways of working and the process and everything else. And guess what? We're still figuring it out. I'd like to think because of how ridiculously big our vision is for how much impact we can have that, that we're not going to get to a place where all of a sudden things just start working well for Years, like, for years and years. And so this, like, steady state of disruptive, sometimes chaos, but normally, like, learning from having stepped in something and then, you know, taking the learning and becoming better from having had that failure show up for you. That's just the way things go. And what I've. What I'm processing in real time with Rachel is I am in the operator. I've got the finance folks and the people who make product and the people who throw the events as a part of the teams that I manage. She has the creative responsibilities. When we're at the end of our day and she's talking about the things that she wishes worked better, she just likes to solve a puzzle. She's excited about bringing up her observations. And prior to us working together. This is just the way that we were for 12 years of our 13 years of our marriage. We'd have days, we'd come home, share the experiences of our days, and it just felt fine. Now when she brings up the challenges of the day, I sometimes can default into this place of hearing, this is broken, as it's your fault for not having preempted this from breaking, or you're complicit somehow in not having kept this problem from existing. And that's not her intention. I have to separate her interest in just talking through the opportunity to make things even better at the company with her blaming, which is just not actually what's happening. I just. That's the emotional immaturity of someone who's always trying to make things better versus her. Again, I think it goes back to a little, like, my fixed mindset history and her growth mindset history. She sees problems and is like, let's go. This is awesome. I see problems, and I'm like, oh, no, what does this say? Does this indict me not being awesome?

I so, like, resonate so deeply with that. I see that all the time with. Well, Chris loves to fix things as well. So he kind of is just like, when I say things I want to change or we don't have this person yet or whatever that is, I like to talk about it. Cause I keep this ongoing list in my head that I'm just really kind of. This is in the forefront. These are things I desire and what I want to work better. And sometimes he can be like, well, why we haven't done this is this or this, and explain it to me. I'm like, no, no, this is just me being excited.

Now.

He knows that sometimes I'll still throw that in. And then he likes to get to the heart of a conversation immediately. And sometimes for me, that can feel a little cold, like there's no, no warmup there. So for me, I really learned, like, oh, that's just him really trying to make best use of this time. So it's crazy how, I mean, like, we're just. I learn every single day with working with my partner and my team. So something that comes up from that, that I want to ask you is, you know, when you're an entrepreneur and when you run as many people as you do, there is problems every single day. And I am in this place of like just actually radical acceptance of what's coming up and not getting emotionally tied to anything that comes up and looking for the solution. So what do you do? Because I think people suppress themselves from actually reaching the success that they want out of fear of crisis or, you know, the breakdown or, you know, what if I throw this event of 7,000 people and think things go terribly wrong? Like, what do you do? Do you go to that place and accept it? Do you, what's your coping mechanism with that?

Well, I used to really struggle with it because again, like the history, my muscle memory only came out of highly functional, functioning, well, organizations. And the absence of that functioningness here made me worry that maybe I was the wrong fit to lead the organization. And what it's taken is for me to find people who have experience in operations like ours that are scaling fast, that have the interpersonal, the infrastructural, the like, the things like, hey, there's no process here, there's no this here. Like, there are plenty of things that don't exist yet. Who else has had experience in meeting these things but not yet having implemented them? Find these people and have them represent some of the truth of their experience so that it normalizes mine. Rachel was speaking recently on the stage of John Maxwell and he's become an awesome resource for her in her experience with what it means to write these books and do this work. And he, in some really beautiful ways has been able to normalize some of what has been overwhelming for her, her in just this last year, year and a half. But when I was backstage with him the other day, I said, I was like, I was complaining ish about the constant, you know, the constant state of problems that exist in this work. And he said, and he's like, just like the king of awesome one liners. He said, a leader never has two good days in a row. A leader never has two good days in a row. It doesn't matter if you're in a startup or if you're running a Fortune 500 company, you're going to have stuff that inevitably just shows up. It's the price of admission. So number one, like, you just need to accept that that's part of what happens. Two, I have to keep reminding myself that I got my tattoo on my arm. I have to look at it every single day. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not what ships were built for. I left the harbor, I left the Walt Disney company having a job that meant something to other people, afforded my family security, had like the trappings of what the outside world would say was a perfect environment for someone to work inside of. But that left me totally unfulfilled near the end of my journey. And by the way, because the teams were so good, the product was so good, I was the head of sales and selling things that were as good as they were just didn't require that much effort. Right. So I decided to leave certainty for uncertainty. I chose this. And the great thing is I have experienced in the last 18 months the very, very best version of myself. And it's been the hardest it's ever been. On me personally. I have experienced the best in what it means for me to be a leader and it's been impossibly difficult and jarring to my identity. I've experienced the very, very best of our marriage period. And it is the hardest that we have ever had to work to have an exceptional marriage. And so what I like why I bring up that too. Like, if you are interested in exceptional, then you have to get off that dock. One, as a reminder that you're built for it. Because I do have to remind myself every single day. I was built for the choppiness of these waves. But two, being out in the seas comes with the reality that the waves are going to crash up over the deck. It's not maybe will it? Or are you going to get it on a good day? Nope. If you're going to pursue a life full of growth, full of impact, full of calling work, doing things that happen to and fully maximize the potential that you've been gifted, well, you just get used to the fact that it's choppy because you can either have a life that is mediocre, have a life that is under fulfilled, have a life that doesn't have be to and the potential, or have one that comes with a chop. It's one of the other.

I love that. And I think people don't think that it gets better and I really do think that it goes through those seasons of, like. It's like how sets of waves come. Like you're gonna have some that are so big and overwhelming, and you feel like you're never gonna be able to, like, swim out past the break. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you get, like, this calm. And it's just like, you don't know when the next set is coming either. But just enjoy that calm. So I love that you have an awesome new book out. And something I want to know about your book, though. So your book is get out of youf Own Way, which that's the perfect title for us. Every day you just read the title. What I want to know, because I've written a book as well. It was so amazing, yet emotionally confronting. I would watch myself become a different person when I would have to sit down and just be uncomfortable with, like, all of the things that would come up. So what are some of the things that came up for you, even while writing this book?

I feel like I could write a book about writing a book.

Yes.

I mean, it's really number one. It is the greatest work product of my life, period. I've had a very successful career. I've done a whole host of things inside of the entertainment space. This book, period, end of century sentence, is the greatest success that I have produced. And Whether it sells 25 books or 25 million books, it is going to be. It already is the most successful thing I've ever created. I'm so, so proud of it now. It was excruciating. It was in part because, I mean, layers on layers. When I first was handed Go Wash your Face, which was not Rachel's first book, but certainly was her first big commercial success, I tried my very best to convince her to not release, which is crazy because it's almost sold 4 million books now in a year and a half or two years of time. But, like, I was overwhelmed with worry for the amount of transparency she was going to afford the reader in telling all these stories that no one should actually tell. And to have come full circle and see the impact of the this book and have written a version. It's not my version of her book, but it is an attempt to take a similar format in that I start with the 20 lies that I believe that kept me in my own way, similar to the 20 lies that she believed. But I tell them through the lens of someone who was skeptical of the tools, including a tool like the book I wrote that was fixed, mindset oriented to her being more growth, mindset oriented and someone who has always struggled with motivation and how as a person wired like me, I had to persevere through the finding of truth to the lies that would keep me stuck. Now the lies, they turn out to be the 20 stories that I don't really want anyone to know because it's the stuff that normally, especially in particular as a man, but like, just generally, we don't share. Against the backdrop of curated perfection on social media, you definitely are not usually talking about the ways that you struggled. And here I tried to find a way to talk about how I struggled 20 times over to illustrate that in that struggle a lesson was learned. And in that lesson I was able to and applying it to my lifestyle. So that if you as the reader relate in any way to how I struggled in your own life, that maybe you can apply some of my learning. Stay out of your own way yourself. So I get into kind of all the things I talk about, the way that I struggled with negative coping mechanism like drinking, thinking that a drink would make this better. It did not. And I'll be honest, like, getting my book edits back on this very book is the day that I have, I had to make a decision to stop drinking for a year. And that year anniversary is the day I got my book. Because that much red, like you open up your edits, it's just all red marks all over something that you have created that's a trigger. That's like a hyper trigger for me. Like, I've just finally mustered up the courage to be really honest about all these things. And then someone's like, okay, about all those words you wrote. Here's what we thought, right? So I get into that. I get into like the family of origin that you have. They defined for you what it was like to be someone who has a role in a family or parents in a certain way. And the idea that I had to parent like my parents was something that was a lie that I really struggled with with at the beginning. And by the way, like, holding a respect and an appreciation for the way my parents were as parents and how necessary it was for me to depart from that in a way that didn't honor how they raised me, but in a way that would serve my children well. Man, that took some work. I get into a lot of identity stuff, right? Like I had this job and had this title that I thought made me who I was and how I was. And having decided to leave that identity, grappling with who I am and what my worth is and whether I am still as meaningful a contributor to society without president of distribution on a business card was a big thing that I think, man, people stay in jobs they shouldn't be in for way too long because of the way they reported their ideas identity on a card rather than the power of the fulfillment that exists in their being. I mean, I can keep going but I don't want to spoil all the things you tell me how much you want me to actually talk about this book because I'll literally sit here for the rest of the time.

Oh my God. I just, I think if you're a human you're going to relate to all of that and I love how transparent you guys are. Just as in I still see you as your own people although you're such a couple like so I'm so glad that you came out with this book too because I think it's going to be awesome to hear from the partner's perspective of what's going down while one is maybe on a rocket ship or you know, out in front in the beginning. So I'm like ridiculously excited and you guys should go grab this book and take Dave and let him know what your favorite parts were or what's really resonating for you in your life right now so that we can see if we're all the same and on the same page with that. So, so excited for that Dave. I can't even wait to get my copy. Thank you.

I'm Super Jet. I'm going to send you and Chris copies in real time. If humans that are listening actually end up pre ordering the book, I will tell you there is a real time opportunity to hear the first 30 minutes of of the book that I narrate. If you go to get out of your own waythebook.com, you just drop in your info and then as additional bonuses show up, I recorded a two hour E course on how to find your why that'll be something that comes out closer to the new year. But if you buy the book it's going to be my like man, if you spend 15 bucks can I give you 100 bucks worth of value? I will. So anyway, stay tuned for that. I appreciate the shout out for and anyone who wants to listen slash read this thing. I hope it's a great service.

Oh my God, it sounds like an awesome 2020 like book club book. Like to prepare your get it and go through it because really at the end of the day I just always feel like if we knew how to get around our blocks, we'd be doing the thing.

Oh, for sure. I mean, the reality too is it's like I wrote the darn thing. I had these experiences and I'm having to go back and remind myself of what I've learned in the journey as there are new things that are being thrown my way that are triggers, like, oh, wait a second, don't get. Don't get in your own way again. Remember this thing that you need to do, whether it's a habit or a hack, to stay out of your. Oh, that's.

You know, that's so cool because you just reminded me of something that I'm doing a lot right now. And sometimes when we go to New Le, we are going to the next level, right? We just. We just passed go. We're doing this stuff. Like, we're like, really proud of ourselves for certain things, but we're on to the next level and things feel hard again. It's like everything is this. It's all recycled. It's just coming in a different form. So something that I'm saying which is awesome is like, you've been here before, just in a different way. Like, we felt this before, we've experienced this before, you've overcome this before. It's just taking on a new form right now. So that's actually been something that's super powerful for me. But what.

I dig it. I want to throw this out too, because I think it's important. And I know you and Chris are big believers in getting together with people in masterminds or just challenging the way that you think conventionally with people who have already had some experience or done things differently. One of the biggest things that has changed the way that I've approached this business in the last year and a half has been the way that I've surrounded myself with people who have already traversed some of the things that we are walking through as an expanding business. And by the way, my skepticism, it applied as much to the idea of a mastermind as anything else. And I am now on the other side of this. This is no ad. I don't care whose mastermind you look at. I don't personally grow or run one, but I've been a part of a couple. I can't speak highly enough about the power of being in community with people who can affirm that the things that you're feeling are real and normal, or that if there's a thing that you're thinking about business model wise or business wise, that they already have some experience in it's just a fast path. You get to skip ahead in time rather than having to fumble through it and make all the mistakes. So do yourself the favor of considering that if you have not.

Oh my God. Amen. I would not be where I am if it wasn't for masterminds coaching events. And you guys have such epic events for wherever people are at, really. So you have the Rise conference and then you're still doing Rise Together.

So we have the Rise Conference right now. There are conferences in Fort Myers, Florida in January, Toronto, Canada in March, in San Diego in June of 2020 that are announced that you can head to the Holisco site for if you're interested. But then also we've done the Rise Together conference live before and the feedback from the audience was, man, there's a little more intimacy that may be required in doing this work well. So we are in real time recording an e course of that live experience that people can do it from their home. So that's, I want to say, in like the February.

Okay, amazing. So we're going to link up all of the things in this podcast, his book, the different conferences that are coming up. So anything on your heart, like in closing, that you just feel like you need people to know.

Oh, man. You know what? I think it's. I'm so appreciative of you having me on here. I'm so appreciative of the work that you and Chris do on an every single day basis. And, and I will say, as a person who has now, just for the last year and a half, really been freed by the pursuit of impact and the pursuit of unlocking what real potential exists inside of my being by doing something that was a departure from conventional thinking, departure from societal norms, departure from what the people who loved me most thought was in my best interest. You have to now responsibly, don't do anything drastic, but you have to follow the callings on your heart and the opportunity to fully take the gifts that were afforded you and gift them to people. This weird word, influencer, is a thing that gets bandied about when you get a certain following on social media, which is crazy to me, every single person listening is an influence. You all individually have influence. And the way that you use the responsibility of your influence is a reflection of how much you're unpacking and delivering the gifts that you were gifted yourself. And if the gifts that you have are currently compromised by the station in your life because. Because you're living into an identity that society suggests you play by you're living into a role that your friends, your mother in law, the other moms at pta, the way that you think about what will this do to my kids? What will this do to my kids? I have four kids. What will this do to my kids? I ask this question in a completely different way. My kids, my three brothers, will never ever question a woman's ability to stand on stage, write number one New York Times best selling books, lead any meeting, sit in any boardroom because they have a mother who's modeling what it is to fully live into the gifts that she was afforded. My daughter hopefully will never need to read a book that my wife wrote called We'll Stop Apologizing because she's never modeled in our home. This posture of apologizing for who she is and what she can be. So anyway, sorry I sidetracked. But if there is something that other people have ordained is the way that you should be. And that way in some way constrains the unleashing of the impact that you could have if only your gifts were fully available to the audience that needs to them so desperately. Reject the ridiculousness of those people because those people don't have to live with the possibility of you regretting not having fully left that gift out on the world. I lived by some rules of what real men do and how real executives operate and how husbands are supposed to provide this and not that. And most, most of the things that I believe that society ordained or the people I love suggested was in my best interest I have rejected. And the fruit that's come in that rejection is so abundant and so fulfilling, even though it's been disrupting, it's been the best. So trust your instinct, make yes responsible choices, but don't let the worry of what other people might think be the gate that keeps you from letting your gift be an influence. Those.

So good I have so thoroughly enjoyed this time. I'm so grateful for you, for all that you're doing, for the work that you're doing on yourself, for the emotions you're experiencing and working through and sharing with everyone that's so, so powerful. And I just think that it's beyond powerful for people who are working together as well. So you guys are a massive North Star in our lives and we are so grateful. So we will. I'll look for your book. I'll be sharing your book.

Your book.

I'll be loving all of the 20 lies that we're going to be getting out of our own way with. And I always end on one very last question, you're like, I thought I answered all the questions. This one's quick. So you're either in passing of a total stranger or in an elevator for, like, a ride of, like, three floors. It's like 30 seconds long. And they look over at you and they ask you, how do I make myself happy? What do you say?

If they say, how do I make myself happy? I say, put yourself in a position to grow, because the tie between growth and fulfillment is one of the strongest in the universe. And if you aren't in a place where you are being pushed out of your comfort zone into a place where growth is possible, you'll never truly be happy.

Oh, needed that. All right, thank you so much. And you guys, if you loved this episode as much as I did, make sure you text it to a friend right now. Literally, go text your friend right now and be the person that gives them a gift today. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment, tell us what you think, Tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again, guys.

Bye.

Bye.